T-Mobile; another huge bill due to thievery

chuckley

i must say u should always bar ur fone as soon as u realise, but in all the 4 times ive lost/had stolen, ive never rushed to do it. im lucky tho the battery has always bin nearly dead.

but with these pinlock fone its too long 4 a thief to take out chip and put in another fone and use. it'l happen with an old style that doesnt pin lock, coz u can use immediately.

Basically the moral of the story is, report as soon as u can.

Wintermute

Until the phone has been reported lost / stolen the customer is liable for all calls made whether the phone is in their posession or not. SIM cards should be viewed as the chip in your chip and pin credit card (yes, I know, they're different!), but without as much protection rather than a piece of a gadget, as they have the potential to cost the account holder thousands.

The phone being barred for high usage generally relates to the customers credit rating, a high credit rating allows them to run up a lot of calls and unfortunately barring customers from using their phone for suspected fraud often proves very unpopular.

T-Mobile may allow your friend to pay in installments, but this may effect her credit rating.

In regards to calls to the Middle East being made from lost/stolen handsets, unfortunately it's extremely common and it always seems to be the Middle East rather than other countries, generally Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.

imaginarynumber

wantmemoney wrote: »

Terms and conditions have to be fair.

Isn't that just an urban myth?

gjchester

Early_Q wrote: »

All mobile networks stipulate a term in their standard service agreement that the service user is liable for all usage when the handset is stolen until reported to the operator.

This has thrown up a lot of commentary in the Guardian and the BBC et al and represents a slightly shade of grey legally. Essentially you have unlimited liability on your handset (some have been billed tens of thousands); compared to credit cards where fraud is covered by the creditor it seems a greatly imbalanced contractual obligation.

The issue is that the OP could have made the calls then relaised what the bill would be and reported the phone stolen to avoid paying. I know that may not be the case here but it's happened before and hence thats why calls made are your responsibility until the loss is reported.

imaginarynumber

I have never understood why the providers allow this type of situation to happen in the first place?

When they witness abnormal activity why do they not contact the contract holder to verify that nothing untoward is happening?

Credit card companies do it so why not t-mobile et al?

Guys_Dad

imaginarynumber wrote: »

I have never understood why the providers allow this type of situation to happen in the first place?

When they witness abnormal activity why do they not contact the contract holder to verify that nothing untoward is happening?

Credit card companies do it so why not t-mobile et al?

Why? Well here is why

How does the network get in touch - remembering that the friend lost £900 in 24 hours ? By ringing the number? Well that won't work, will it as friend has lost phone.

By sending a letter?? Too long a timescale.

Someone answers, so how does the conversation go? Network asks for person's name. Thief says "I am sorry, but I am not prepared to give my name to you as i don't know who you are. Good bye"

Or thief doesn't answer.

If no one answers, does network cut off the phone automatically, when the calls may be genuine to a relative or family who are ill in Asia/Africa etc?

Also there are 44 million mobiles in the UK. Just how many extra staff would be needed to monitor the use?

Utopia doesn't exist, I am afraid.

imaginarynumber

What is so wrong with them phoning the handset? All they need to do is have an automated message saying that the customer needs to phone the customer services to re-enable calls to the country/service in question.

The credit card firms don't pay people to sit there looking at every transaction, they have software that does that so I don't imagine the costs would be prohibitive.

Granted it would be a minor inconvenience for a very small number of people but how often do genuine customers rack up such bills?

Additionally, every phone account has a credit rating associated with it, yet in these cases they seem to ignore that rating. A cynic might suggest that they are happy with the extra income and thus have no incentive to curtail such practices.

BTW I am not asking for utopia- if however firms are insistent that customers are completely liable then I do think that they should try to mitigate that risk.

Jon_01

And as GD say above. How are they supposed to know ?

The network I work for has something like 14 million users. How are they to be monitored ? The billing systems don't work in real time and never has (for any network), so they can't be used.

All you have to do is know where your phone is, is that really so hard? When you can't find it call the network and have it blocked. Simple, job done.

If you never call outside the UK have a block put in international calling. I have, even if the phone gets stolen the most they can do is call their mums.

None of the networks have ever offered to police your acc for you, it couldn't be done...

eranou

imaginarynumber wrote: »

What is so wrong with them phoning the handset? All they need to do is have an automated message saying that the customer needs to phone the customer services to re-enable calls to the country/service in question.

The credit card firms don't pay people to sit there looking at every transaction, they have software that does that so I don't imagine the costs would be prohibitive.

Granted it would be a minor inconvenience for a very small number of people but how often do genuine customers rack up such bills?

Additionally, every phone account has a credit rating associated with it, yet in these cases they seem to ignore that rating. A cynic might suggest that they are happy with the extra income and thus have no incentive to curtail such practices.

BTW I am not asking for utopia- if however firms are insistent that customers are completely liable then I do think that they should try to mitigate that risk.

And who would pay for this software? the costs would be passed back to customers in the form of higher prices etc.

The user can mitigate the risk themselfs by setting a password on the phone and PIN on the SIM card but unfortunatly many cannot be bothered to do this

imaginarynumber

Jon_01 wrote: »

And as GD say above. How are they supposed to know ?

The network I work for has something like 14 million users. How are they to be monitored ? The billing systems don't work in real time and never has (for any network), so they can't be used.

If the billing system doesn't work in real time then how does PAYG work?

Why can't the accounts flag up when the account reaches a certain level, eg £100?

How many other buisness models offer unlimited credit???

Sure customers should take some responsibilty, hence my cap suggestion.